Soon after a fishing net ban was imposed in Queensland, Australia's Gladstone Harbor due to disease and massive fish deaths in the region, locals on October 10, 2011 called once again on the state government to test the water after sea turtles were discovered perished off Turkey Beach.

Saying that it is the worst episode of avian bacterial disease in a decade, officials on October 7, 2011 report that nearly 2,000 ducks and other birds have died from botulism at a hunting lake in Nevada, USA.

In a special news report, UK-based The Guardian on October 10, 2011 cited climatologists' warning about the some 20,000 lakes that have formed and continue to grow at the base of glaciers in the Himalayas due to global warming, with outburst flooding that could affect many thousands of people.